Legally Straight offers a critical reading of the legal debate over lesbian and gay marriage in the United States in order to understand how change happened so quickly. The book relies on key judicial opinions to trace changes in our understanding of heterosexuality, as what was once characterized as an elusive object of analysis was brought into the spotlight. Upon closer inspection, it seemed that the cultural value of marriage was becoming tarnished, and the trouble appeared to center around one very specific issue: reproduction. As opponents of lesbian and gay marriage emphasized the link ... More

Legally Straight offers a critical reading of the legal debate over lesbian and gay marriage in the United States in order to understand how change happened so quickly. The book relies on key judicial opinions to trace changes in our understanding of heterosexuality, as what was once characterized as an elusive object of analysis was brought into the spotlight. Upon closer inspection, it seemed that the cultural value of marriage was becoming tarnished, and the trouble appeared to center around one very specific issue: reproduction. As opponents of lesbian and gay marriage emphasized the link between marriage and accidental pregnancy, the evidence mounted, the arguments proliferated, and resistance began to turn against itself. Heterosexuality, it seemed, was little more than a set of palliative prescriptions for the worst of human behavior, and children became the victims. It thus became the province of the courts to reinforce the cultural value of marriage by resisting what came to be known as the “procreation argument,” the assertion that marriage exists primarily to regulate the unruly aspects of heterosexual reproduction. Our conceptions of children and childhood were being put at risk as gays and lesbians were denied marriage. Writing lesbian and gay families into the law of marriage became the better option.